In this month’s Exams Officer Update, you’ll find information and guidance on:

• January 2026 series certificates
• summer 2026 exam guidance
• NEA mark submissions
• results and post-results training
• subject updates
• dates for your diary

January 2026 certificates

Certificates for the January 2026 exam series will be sent out by Sunday 31 May 2026.

If a learner's grade changes after their certificate has been printed, you can get a corrected version for free. For all other changes (eg name) there's a fee of £50.25 per learner. Find out how to change a certificate on our website.

Summer 2026 exam guidance

Downloading question papers

To better support you this summer, our question papers will be available to download from 90 minutes before the exam, instead of 60 minutes.

Fake papers

It's very important that students know not to buy exam papers online. They will not help them, and could result in strict penalties and loss of their qualifications.

JCQ's Information for candidates – Social Media infographic shows students what they can and cannot do on social media.

To discourage anyone from doing this kind of online activity, we have a court injunction preventing interference with public exams. The injunction prohibits anyone in the UK from attempting to obtain, transfer, publish or sell exam papers or associated materials (for example, resource or answer booklets), whether fake or genuine.

Please share this information with all staff involved in delivering exams within your centre. You can find more information on our website.

Attendance registers

For exams that fall before the half-term break, you should have received hard copies of your attendance registers. For exams that fall after the half-term break, attendance registers have been dispatched and should be with you soon. If you're missing an attendance register on the day of an exam, or if you’ve made late entries or amendments, you can print one from your own MIS system or download one from Centre Services.

Access arrangements reminders

As part of the Equality Act 2010, we’d like to remind you of the importance of following the JCQ General Regulations, (section 5.4), as well as the JCQ Access Arrangements and Reasonable Adjustments guidance (section 1.2). These regulations set out that schools and colleges must not charge disabled students (including private candidates) any additional fees for reasonable adjustments. Not following this guidance is malpractice.

Certification warning reports (CWRs)

Please check for CWRs in Centre Services. If you've received one, there may be data missing from your entries for summer 2026.

You can find your CWRs using the following steps:

• log into Centre Services
• click ‘Pre-exams'
• click ‘Entries’
• select ‘Certification warning reports’
• choose the relevant year and series
• click ‘search’.

Please act as soon as possible to correct the entries. Without this information we cannot issue a result to your student(s) on results day.

Collection of scripts around half-term

If you have exams on Friday 22 May 2026 and are unable to send your scripts that afternoon, please keep them in your secure room and send them using your regular Parcelforce collection as early as possible after Bank Holiday Monday.

Please do not send your scripts using a Post Office counter as the packets will not be tracked in the correct way, and this could lead to issues with accounting for your learners’ work.

NEA mark submissions

A reminder that the deadline to submit non-exam assessment (NEA) marks and grades for most GCSEs has passed, but the following NEA deadlines are coming up:

• Friday 15 May 2026 – most AS and A-levels, plus Applied Generals, ELC, FCSE, and Project qualifications
• Sunday 31 May 2026 – GCSE and A-level Art and Design
• Two weeks before your moderation visit – GCSE and A-level Physical Education.

Work for Applied General External Assignment (ABS3) should be posted to your examiner by Saturday 6 June 2026.

You can find the submission deadlines for your subject by checking our submission dates spreadsheet.

You can find more NEA guidance in our March email, you can also watch our NEA training video.

Results and post-results training

We’ve got results and post-results webinars for summer 2026 on the following dates:

• Thursday 25 June, 13.30pm – 15.00pm – new Exams Officers
• Monday 29 June, 13.30pm – 14.30pm – experienced Exams Officers
• Tuesday 7 July, 13.30pm – 15.00pm – new Exams Officers.

The sessions will be presented by a member of our Exams Officer Engagement team and there will be an opportunity for you to ask questions.

Topics will include:

• key dates
• restricted release days
• results days
• post-results services and how to apply
• Data Insights.

You can book your place now. We're looking forward to seeing some of you there.

Subject updates

GCSE

English Language (8700) - changes for first assessment in summer 2026 (reminder) – watch our summary video for quick overview.

Dates for your diary

January 2026 exam series

31 May: Date by which January 2026 certificates will be issued

Summer 2026 exam series

15 May: Last date to conduct all GCSE MFL speaking tests

22 May: Last date to conduct all AS and A-level MFL speaking tests

31 May: Last date for AQA and the moderator to receive internally-assessed marks for June 2026 Art and Design

6 Jun: Last date to send external assignment Level 3 Certificate Business Unit 3 (ABS3) for June 2026

17 Jun: Date of final June 2026 GCSE exam

18 Jun: Date of final June 2026 AS and A-level exam

See our full Key Dates Calendar.